Alabama’s Career Center Services

Alabama’s Career Center System consolidates the delivery of intake and assessment services with case management services. During these processes, customers are provided with labor market information, job development services, unemployment insurance information (as needed), vocational rehabilitation services (as needed), veterans’ programs (as needed), and referral to occupational training (as needed). The Career Center is to be a single, coordinated location for the provision of workforce development services for a given area as required by the WIOA.

Each Career Center includes a resource area which provides free computer Internet access to information giving the availability of jobs and the availability of training to prepare for jobs. If training is needed by the individual and the individual can benefit from such training, the person may be referred to a training opportunity.

Seven of the Alabama Career Centers are deemed to be “Comprehensive Centers.” At least one comprehensive center is required (by WIOA) for each local area in the state. In Alabama, we have defined our workforce development partners required to be in a Career Center as the State Employment Service, Adult Education, Rehabilitation Services, and WIOA Title I-B. The twenty-seven Comprehensive Career Centers have staff from these programs located at the Career Center on a full- or part-time basis. The remaining 42 Career Center locations are referred to as “Satellite or Itinerant Career Centers.” These locations do not have program staff from all partner agencies located within the Career Center. Itinerant locations are only open certain days of the week.

The Workforce Development Division took delivery in the summer of 2007 of a mobile unit built from the ground up to be used as a Mobile Career Center. This 15-work station vehicle is connected to the Internet via satellite. It also contains an interview room and a 42-inch video screen. It is designed to serve as a classroom when needed. The primary purpose is to assist in getting people re-situated in the workplace after disasters. As a second priority, it is used to assist workers who lost their jobs in plant closings and layoffs. It is housed at the Alabama Department of Labor.